C P Goerz Berlin Serial Numbers
Julieann Rohde
This thread can already be viewed by all G.W.F. members. Have you checked out the Goerz PDF, this can be viewed on Google, try entering Goerz binocular serial numbers, this should take you to www.binoculars-cinecollectors.com this is a comprehensive overview of the company history and products. I am afraid you will not be able to find anything on the history of your particular pair.
The D.F. 03 Offizierglas was designed and manufactured by C.P. Goerz, Berlin. There were four D.F. 03 models all of which were accepted as official service binoculars for the German infantry. The first three had closely spaced objective lenses and differed in types of hinge construction and center bars while the fourth model had widely spaced objective lenses. The 2nd model was made in 6X, 7X and 8X powers and was made in the greatest numbers.
If so, it's only because there's so much nonsense flying around that it
has obscured the pretty simple facts.All Dagors with serial numbers after 77000 (I may have dropped a zero there;
I don't own any Dagors any more to check) are essentially the same; this
includes all gold-dot, "golden" (gold bezel) and some plain black paint
Dagors. They're generally all reformulated with modern glass, have good
single coatings, and were centered with the automatic process which eliminated
most of the QA problems that had resulted from the difficulty of centering
Dagor-type lenses by hand.The Kern-built Dagors sold by Schneider are an exception; some are multicoated
and are marked "MC-Dagor" and are presumably better than the other post-77000
modern Dagors in that they should have better contrast. I've shot one and
can confirm that it was a pretty contrasty lens, but multicoating just isn't
as important with the Dagor design as it is with the more common modern
Plasmats, which have more air-glass interfaces.Now, "Gold Dot" and "Golden" Dagors sell for a premium for various reasons;
the collector market, confusion over whether all Dagors with serial numbers
over 77000 are of similar optical quality (they are), hype from various
dealers, etc. and so forth. If you're looking for a Dagor I would recommend
a non gold-dot, non "golden" or "gold rim" post-77000 lens in a Rapax shutter.
I had a lens like that and I still somewhat regret selling it. OTOH I bought
it before the current Dagor craze for $395 and sold it about a year and a
half ago _to a dealer_ for $400 -- so I don't feel _too_ bad about it. The
Rapax shutter was the only one I had and was a bit of a nuisance to maintain
just because of its uniqueness but was both accurate and consistent, which is
a rarety in LF shutters both old and new.--
Thor Lancelot Simon t...@rek.tjls.com
"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"
>If so, it's only because there's so much nonsense flying around that it
>has obscured the pretty simple facts.
>
>All Dagors with serial numbers after 77000 (I may have dropped a zero there;
>I don't own any Dagors any more to check) are essentially the same; this
>includes all gold-dot, "golden" (gold bezel) and some plain black paint
>Dagors. They're generally all reformulated with modern glass, have good
>single coatings, and were centered with the automatic process which eliminated
>most of the QA problems that had resulted from the difficulty of centering
>Dagor-type lenses by hand.
>
>The Kern-built Dagors sold by Schneider are an exception; some are multicoated
>and are marked "MC-Dagor" and are presumably better than the other post-77000
>modern Dagors in that they should have better contrast. I've shot one and
>can confirm that it was a pretty contrasty lens, but multicoating just isn't
>as important with the Dagor design as it is with the more common modern
>Plasmats, which have more air-glass interfaces.
>
>Now, "Gold Dot" and "Golden" Dagors sell for a premium for various reasons;
>the collector market, confusion over whether all Dagors with serial numbers
>over 77000 are of similar optical quality (they are), hype from various
I have the Shutterbug article thanks to David Lindquist who was kind
enough to send me a copy. It is actually a letter to the editor.
In it Bolsetzian says that the centering devise was applied to lens
production in 1963. Serial numbers starting at 770000 would start
somewhere around 1947. My serial number list is also due to Mr.
Bolsetzian. This list does not extend past 1955 and has a few gaps.
It would be interesting to know how Goerz American centered lenses
and also how much better this method was than the old conventional
method.
I frequently see statements made about modern lenses being better
because they are not assembled by hand. I rather think there is as
much hand work now as ever. There maybe some automation employed
grinding and polishing the blanks and greater precision in the
centering and edging operations but both are likely to be still
ultimately controlled by observation. Cementing elements is not an
operation which could be easily automated and automation would likely
not be economical unless thousands of lenses were made.
I was sent a second article by Mr. Lindquist. This one is by Art
Kramer from "Modern Photography" May, 1969. It has a number of
bloomers. It is mainly of interst because he says that Goerz was
contemplating the manufacture of a Plasmat type lens at the time.
The Plasmat is generally credited to Paul Rudolph but Kingslake
makes clear that Emile von Hoegh, the inventor of the Dagor, proposed
it as a variation of the Dagor shortly after joining Goerz in Berlin.
The Plasmat has advantages over the Dagor but has four additional
glass-air interfaces so was not a popular design until after lens
coatings were made ecomonical. (The Ross Wide Angle Xpress is an
early Plasmat).
I made sketch which displays a number on a 7 segment display (single digit) received over serial.
I created a function with all the combinations of the numbers in it and call the function once Serial.available > 0.